


Black Tea and Empty Rooms

by StarlightDreamer16



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Accidental Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, But everyone low-key loves Martin in some form, Canon Asexual Character, I'm Sorry, Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, Lonely Martin Blackwood, M/M, Martin's mother is very mean, Or wants what he has, TRYING to update weekly but we'll see, Tea, This will be JonMartin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:06:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDreamer16/pseuds/StarlightDreamer16
Summary: Loneliness had been wrapped around Martin, heavy and comforting like a well-worn blanket, long before he ever heard the name Peter Lukas.It seeped beneath his skin and infused into his bones like a strong cup of tea.Martin always loved making people tea..5+1 times Martin made people lonely
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 28
Kudos: 114





	1. Ms Blackwood

Martin had always been a lonely child, sitting by himself in the corner of the playground and building homes for spiders rather than making friends with the other children.

Some days Ms Blackwood had the strongest urge to stand up from the cold iron bench and walk away just to see if anyone would notice. She was sure that Martin wouldn’t tell anyone; he was such a quiet, nervous child, always so worried about bothering people.

He looked over at her and his round face split open in a smile. Even from across the park she could see the gaps where two of his front teeth had fallen out last week.

The skin around his eyes crinkled. His curls were messy with dirt and traces of the lemon ice lolly she’d bought him for lunch.

She could find absolutely none of herself in that bright, grinning face.

“Martin,” she called, voice coming out harsher than intended and sparking the attention of a half dozen other parents. “Let’s go home now… sweetheart.”

She smiled tightly at a mother on the bench opposite her in a way that she hoped leant more towards exhausted than irritated and received a sympathetic tight-lipped smile in response.

Martin’s sticky fingers wriggled their way into hers and Ms Blackwood had to suppress the urge to pull away. She gingerly pressed a hand to the back of Martin’s head, feeling those soft curls against her skin and tried to remember what he was like as a baby.

There must have been a time when she loved him.

As soon as they stepped out of sight of the park, she twisted her hand free of Martin’s grip and pretended to search for something in her purse. If Martin noticed that she zipped the bag closed without pulling anything out, he didn’t comment.

Instead, Martin skipped ahead, rambling on about the different types of deadly spiders found in Australia with such longing in his voice that had she the energy, she might have been concerned.

When they arrived home, Martin shot off to the kitchen and the distant sounds of cupboards opening and schoolbag zippers alerted Ms Blackwood that he was making his lunch for the next day.

There wasn’t very much in terms of school approved snacks in the cupboards, or really any snacks at all, but Martin tended to make do with stale crackers and browning bananas.

He would be hungry soon and she had yet to start dinner, but her bones ached like a woman twice her age and the desire to curl up in bed was present more often than not lately. She had an appointment with the doctor next week. She already knew that whatever was wrong, confirmation would do little to comfort her.

Outside the small living room, a bird had begun to make a nest in the cluster of trees. She watched as a second, more colourful bird swooped over and added a twig to the growing pile.

“Tea?” A voice offered.

Ms Blackwood took the mug distractedly, half focused on the way the afternoon sunshine lingered between the branches of the trees outside the window.

“Thank you, –” the name that almost slipped from her mouth was not the name of the child before her.

Martin looked up at her with wide grey eyes that he had not inherited from her and a rush of anger flooded Ms Blackwood’s body.

She’d been happy once, and healthy and loved. There had been dozens of near identical moments with a different man with grey eyes and curls drooping past his ears and cups of tea in the sunshine.

If she’d never had Martin, he would have stayed.

“Get out.”

Martin stiffened, hands still stretched out in front of him from passing over the tea. His wide eyes searched for something, but she avoided his gaze, focusing on the steam drifting up from the tea.

“Mama?”

She’d had a name once, an identity outside of parenthood.

Ms Blackwood turned and threw the tea down to the floor, satisfied both with the crack of porcelain on floorboards and the muffled hiss of pain Martin let out as the boiling liquid splattered across his legs.

“Get out,” she cried, again.

Martin scurried back, tears prickling in his eyes, chubby fingers still reaching out as if to comfort her or be comforted by her.

She raised her hand and he flinched, finally turning and leaving the room in a mess of young limbs.

If she’d never had Martin, he would have _stayed_.

It wasn’t a fair thing to place on a child, but the house was cold and empty and every day as Martin crept closer to his tenth birthday he looked less and less like her.

Ms Blackwood crumpled to the ground beside the cooling tea and the cracked porcelain.

She’d been alive once, not the pale imitation of a woman she was now. She’d been in love.

She’d been loved.

He had loved her, she knew it. But then… then Martin had come along and he had loved Martin too.

He had loved Martin more than he ever loved her.

Until Martin’s greedy little infant body took too much and there was no love left for her or for anyone.

Maybe that was what was happening to her. Parent-teacher meetings and homework and hungry little fingers wrapped around her own. Maybe Martin was draining the life out of her too.

She wished she’d left Martin at the park.

Perhaps that was what she needed to do to get him to come back.

Outside the window, the birds settled in beside each other in the nest, eagerly awaiting their eggs.

Tomorrow she would cut the tree down. It was the humane thing to do.


	2. Sasha

There was a bouquet of flowers on Martin’s desk when Sasha stepped into the archives that morning. Bright, cheerful things that she couldn’t even guess at naming. Sticking up from the middle was a card depicting a cartoon pair of baby booties and script spelling out a phrase of congratulations.

Sasha was 90% sure that there had been a mistake. Surely, she would know if Martin and some mystery partner had recently welcomed a baby into their life.

Right?

Only, there were a lot of gaps in her mind about him. She wasn’t sure what he did when not at work, or where in London he lived. Honestly, she couldn’t really even tell you any of his interests, except maybe reading and that was a lazy guess at best.

She’d been working with him for, well years really. But research was a large department and she’d never really crossed paths with any of the current archive staff until the move.

It had been difficult switching from artefact storage to research, rather like stepping into secondary school midway through the year.

Everyone was already comfortable with each other, clustered into their own little groups.

She hoped that the move down to the archives would bring them closer. And it had, right?

They were… friends? Martin brought her tea most days, and sometimes they grabbed lunch together, but they only ever really spoke about statements or Tim or Jon.

Jon, right. Of course.

Martin couldn’t have just welcomed a new baby because he was completely smitten by the bitter archivist and he would have mentioned if he were adopting alone.

Satisfied that her co-worker was not, in fact, a complete mystery, Sasha settled down and attempted to read through the report she’d started on the previous week.

Tim swept into the office shoulder to shoulder with Martin, peering down at something on Martin’s phone. He grinned wide at whatever was on the screen and Martin’s cheeks flushed as giggles burst from his mouth.

The first thing Sasha James heard most mornings was Martin’s laughter. It was a contagious, bubbly sort of laughter that filled the cavernous main entrance of the Institute or the dusty crevasses of the archives with ease.

He was always around people; asking Rosie at the front desk how her plants were doing or joking around with Tim or talking to one of the many other Institute employees.

Martin had always reminded Sasha somewhat of a puppy, all endless energy and loyalty and affection.

The moment Tim spotted the flowers on Martin’s desk, his grin shifted into something smug and mischievous. “Got a secret admirer, Martin? Do tell.”

Martin rolled his eyes as Tim draped an arm across his shoulders. Sasha felt a jolt of envy at the easy familiarity they had with each other. Tim had known Martin as long as he’d known her, but she was certain he’d call Martin a friend without a second thought.

Martin snorted and poked at Tim’s arm, but didn’t fully slip away. “It’s for Lacy. You know, from accounting?”

“Who?” Tim asked, squinting in thought.

Jon stepped out of his office, flicking through a handful of papers. She hadn’t seen him come in, but she wasn’t surprised to see him there before the rest of them. She wasn’t entirely sure he left the archives some nights.

“Lacy,” Martin explained. “Red hair, like, thirty maybe? She brought the blueberry muffins in last month.

“Jon,” Tim called, startling the archivist. “Do you know Lacy from accounting?”

Jon sighed and looked over at Tim with tired eyes. Something in his posture reminded Sasha of an exasperated parent.

“She’s a lesbian,” Jon said.

The change was instantaneous. Tim stuttered out something that might have been words had his lips been working correctly, his tan face flushed. Jon’s mouth twitched twice, and then both Tim and Jon were laughing.

Tim was half bent over Martin, laughing loudly into the other man’s shoulder, while Jon was only slightly more composed.

Jon’s laughter was… surprising. It softened his entire body and made him look decades younger. For a moment he wasn’t the tight-laced archivist that they’d been working with for months, he was just Jon Sims.

Sasha could almost understand why Martin liked him so much.

Tim looked up at the same time that Jon looked over and the laughter started up with a new energy.

“How was I supposed to know?” Tim exclaimed through his laughter.

“She has a wife?” Martin replied, verging on laughter himself.

“How was I supposed to _know_?” Tim repeated.

Jon’s composure slipped a bit further away from him. “She has a photo of their wedding on her desk.” 

Martin had no idea what Jon and Tim were talking about, she was sure. But he didn’t seem as utterly left behind as Sasha felt.

Sometimes she worried that she would never quite be able to catch up, like she’d missed out on something vital during her time in artefact storage.

She’d hoped that artefact storage would be, well not fun exactly, but fulfilling. Sasha always had this need to know things, a drive towards picking something apart until she knew exactly how it worked. More often than not she struggled to put it back together because she was already distracted by the next shiny new thing in her hands.

Unfortunately, that tended to apply to people as much as potentially cursed objects and what friendships she had usually only lasted long enough for her to destroy them in the name of knowledge.

Martin, with his easy smile and ability to slip into inside jokes like he was involved from the beginning, must never have had the same problem.

When Martin, Jon and Tim finally recovered and Jon’s rigid spine was back in place, Martin picked up the flowers.

“Anyway,” he continued. “They’re for Lacy because her wife just had a baby. I had them delivered here because I wanted to give them to her in person.”

Tim thumbed a delicate white petal and hummed. “You’re headed up now? I might tag along if that’s fine.”

“Course.” Martin smiled at Jon. “You wanna come too?”

Jon looked anxiously between the paperwork in his hands and Martin’s questioning eyes. Sasha could pinpoint the moment he gave in.

He carefully set the paperwork down on the edge of Tim’s desk. “I suppose I can spare five minutes.”

Martin beamed. “Brilliant.”

“Besides,” Jon continued, as he followed Martin and Tim out of the archives, “someone has to prevent Tim from hitting on her, again.”

Tim’s groan echoed back down the hallway to the empty archives.

Almost empty.

Sasha sat at her desk, alone except for the day-old teacup in front of her and the specks of dust drifting through the air.

Some days it felt like no one would even notice if she disappeared.

Some days it felt like no one would care.


	3. Tim

The moment Tim stepped out of the warm, pulsating club, the November air crept under the loose collar of his shirt and sent goosebumps prickling his skin. He rubbed warmth into his arms, trying uselessly to hang on to the last thrums of the high, exhilarating feeling of being crowded in amongst the mass of bodies. In there he wasn’t Timothy Stoker, Archival Assistant of the Magnus Institute, he was just skin and muscles and veins. He could almost pretend that his wild heartbeat was from adrenaline instead of fear.

His sweat cooled to ice against his skin, pulling at his clothes unpleasantly and gluing his hair to his forehead. A handful of smokers littered around the entrance of the club, huddled together against the cold air, tugging on jackets and scarves.

He sent a grin towards a redhead with legs that seemed to drip out of a minidress like melted wax, and then shot a similar look to the man behind her. She held the cigarette to her lips with more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary to drag the smoke into her lungs.

He wasn’t planning on bringing anyone home that night, even as he let his eyes linger and let other eyes linger in return.

It was a familiar feeling, being seen, something he’d been unable to shake since he’d started in the Archives the year before. That nagging sense that you weren’t alone, no matter how isolated he felt.

At least this time he could track some of the eyes.

He stumbled around the corner and the bass of the club dulled off like he’d buried his face under a pillow. It took three more blocks until the sound drifted off completely.

Clouds obscured the sky, barely muting the glow of the few stars brave enough to peer down at the empty London streets. It there was a moon, he couldn’t spot it. He could almost pretend he was alone, witnessed only by the stars and the alcohol in his blood, in the quiet world of post two-am London. Almost.

His feet had taken him to the Magnus Institute. Granted, it was on the way back to his flat, but only if he took the longer route. 

His flat was in a building taller than the Institute. And yet, the building loomed, even though it was barely four stories above ground and had no real reason to.

Stone and brick and metal and glass. Nothing sinister, nothing spooky, nothing marking the building as different from those on either side of it. But the weight of being seen, of being known, fell across his shoulders like humidity in the desert, pressing him down into the ground.

He’d enjoyed that feeling of being seen once. Surely, a building like this had the answers to everything.

The answers to…

He should have been more afraid of the questions.

From around the side of the building, the sharp scrape of metal against concrete rang out. For a moment his alcohol addled brain jumped to Jonah Magnus, until the rest of his mind caught up and he remembered that despite what people like Melanie King might say, ghosts weren’t one of the monsters that were real.

Besides, even if they were, he doubted that the long dead founder of the institute had nothing better to do but haunt the building.

Were ghost orgies a thing? He’d seen the portrait hanging in Elias’ office and the original founder of the institute wasn’t bad to look at, in an old-fashioned, sugar-daddy kind of way.

Something rolled out from the alleyway and Tim crept closer, pressing his back against the side of the building. Something rolled to a stop against his foot and he startled, barely restraining himself from kicking it. Glancing around the empty street, he reached down and picked it up.

It was a metal bottle, warm to the touch. Before the rational part of his mind could protest, he unscrewed the cap and sniffed.

Tea.

Tea? He smelt it again and the earthy, warm scent remained the same. It sloshed around in the thermos, steam creeping up to warm his frozen cheeks. It took more effort than he wanted to admit to stop himself from taking a sip.

“Honestly, Jon,” Martin’s voice cried out, high and soft with exasperation.

Tim peered around the edge of the building and spotted Martin’s soft form. He’d swapped out his slacks for a pair of faded jeans and a cream sweater that hung slightly too long on his arms, dipping past his hands to reach the tips of his fingers. He held the jacket he’d worn to work earlier that day to his chest, cradling it like it were more than just fabric and buttons and zippers.

The moonless sky cast shadows across his hair, dimming the usual strawberry tones into something deeper.

A flick of light lit up the other half of the alley, fire flickering across rich brown skin and then cutting off just as quick. The end of the newly lit cigarette burned vibrantly as Jon took a drag.

“Go home, Martin.”

Jon was in the same creased shirt and trouser combo he’d worn since he entered the Archives two days prior.

What happened to the neat freak from research who’d once offered to iron Tim’s tie for him?

Jon stepped forward and the light of his cigarette bounced off the silver marks on his cheek.

Tim _itched_.

Even months later, he could feel the worms digging their way through his skin, getting comfortable in his flesh and then deciding to go deeper still. Even without the physical scars, he would have been able to tell you exactly where each worm had forced their way in.

It was still a conscious effort not to reopen the wounds and wriggle his own fingers into the holes just to double check that they were gone.

Sometimes he could almost, almost, forget about the worms. But then he’d catch a glimpse of Jon’s silver flecked skin like a warped reflection and remember.

Martin hummed, the worried, desperate sound loud in the quiet, and stepped forward. “It’s past two, Jon.”

Jon sighed out a breath that was mostly smoke. “Why are you here? Surely your jacket could have waited the weekend.”

Martin flushed, holding the jacket closer to his body like a shield. “I just, I thought… You looked exhausted when I left and…”

“I don’t need a mother, Martin. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Do you have to?” Martin’s body is turned towards Tim’s direction, eyes locked resolutely on Jon.

“Excuse me?” Jon sputtered out, fumbling with the cigarette.

“You’ve been through so much, Jon. No one would blame you for taking a rest when you clearly need it. Just one night, get some sleep in your actual bed.”

Jon stomped closer to Martin, until Tim care barely make out their individual features in the dark. It was an intimate sort of proximity, one right movement and their lips would be touching. As if he realised the same, Jon stepped back, placing a solid metre between them.

“I don’t appreciate your pity. I don’t need you to tell me what’s best for me or for my job or, or…” Jon’s anger puttered off almost as quickly as it started, as if his voice was stolen away from him.

Martin looked at Jon in a way that Tim didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him. Like he would burn down the building and then himself if it meant Jon got a solid night of sleep. Like Jon deserved such unflinching loyalty, even when more than half the words from Jon’s lips were insults towards him.

Jon had the entirety of Martin’s heart cradled in those pockmarked hands. Tim hated it. It wasn’t necessarily that Tim wanted it, it was just that, well, no one had ever looked at Tim the way Martin looked at Jon and he… He wanted that.

Jon didn’t even deserve it. Tim knew Jon had been following him home and triple checking every statement he handled. He knew Jon thought that one of them killed Gertrude.

He knew Jon suspected Martin as well. At least a little bit.

“Just one night,” Martin repeated, voice whisper soft in the dark. “Please, Jon.”

Jon stubbed out the cigarette against the wall and followed Martin from the alley.

Tim set the thermos of tea down on the concrete.

A new club had opened around the corner a week ago. If he closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend that the bodies against his and the ever-watching eyes actually cared.


	4. Elias

There was a teacup on Elias’ desk.

The steam curled through the air, bringing the delicate aroma of black tea across the room. Elias stepped forward and edged around it like inhaling the scent would kill him. On another day, with a different tea, it very well could have. But Melanie King did not prepare the beverage.

A faded blue sticky note was glued to his desk with Martin Blackwood’s sloppy cursive telling him to _Enjoy_. A crudely drawn smiley face sat beside the word, mocking him with its simple lines.

He could feel Martin in the bowels of the Institute, preparing as he had been for weeks. Distantly, he could sense Jon and Tim and Basira and Daisy preparing to face the Stranger. He knew which of them would return and which would not.

It was not an educated guess.

He did not know when Martin had placed the cup of tea on his desk, or why.

It was certainly bold of Martin, but his plan needed no announcement. Already Elias could sense the anticipation swelling from below as he gathered statements and a lighter. He would feel it the moment the first spark was lit. Martin had based his plan on it.

So why the tea?

He gently looped a finger around the handle of the cup and turned it to face him, watching the dark liquid splash against the sides of the rim. Black, one sugar, no milk. His usual order.

Discomfort flared in his mind. A pinprick, like an ant crawling across his skin. Not painful, but consistent, a reminder that pain could come at any time if it decided to bite.

In the Archives, a flame had been lit.

He watched with dozens of eyes as Martin Blackwood brought the flame to the first of the statements in front of him.

The ant bit down.

It wasn’t the sort of pain that hurt, but it was irritating enough that he strode across his office and made his way down towards the Archives. Martin had burned through three more statements by the time he reached the locked door to the records room.

“Martin,” Elias drawled, letting every syllable settle on his tongue the way he Knew Jon did sometimes, “open the door.”

Martin stiffened and turned to the door, clutching the next statement to his chest. He took a breath and straightened his shoulders.

“Sorry, Elias. I didn’t quite catch that. You see, there’s a door in the way.”

Elias sighed and resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. He should have given Martin to Gertrude; he’d have made an excellent sacrifice. Perhaps he’d give him to Peter as a gift.

“Martin, I do not have time for your temper tantrum today. Open the door.”

Martin brought another statement up to the lighter and let out a gasp of excitement as it lit up. “Some of these papers are ancient, huh? They make amazing kindling.”

“Martin.”

“I thought you had a key? Or, better yet, why not just jump into my head and force me to open the door? Or, sorry, is that out of your reach?”

Perhaps he should give Martin to Anabelle instead.

Elias reluctantly stepped away from the door, closing his eyes and opening them somewhere else. He caught flickers of his Archivist, mixed too closely with the lights and sounds and wax of the Stranger. But then Martin set another statement alight and the images blurred with the sharp pain of a migraine.

He slammed his fist against the closed door.

“Gosh, I hope this isn’t taking up too much of your time,” Martin mused.

“Do you even know who you’re really doing this for, Martin?” Elias sent a flicker of knowledge into Martin’s mind. A snapshot of Jon’s mind, of how little he cared for Martin. “All this, for a man who has no intention of ever loving you back.”

He didn’t tell him that the memory was two years old.

“Oh, is that supposed to be, what, a revelation?”

Elias hummed, letting his voice drift through the door between them. “It’s a shame really. You try so hard to make up for it all: leaving him behind in the tunnels, watching him suffer through his fate. You really still think he’s worth protecting, don’t you?”

Inside, Martin’s fingers fumbled with the next statement. “Shut up. Of course, he is, he’s… he’s _Jon_.”

“Is he, though?”

“Excuse me?” Martin questioned, voice pitched high with indignation.

A grin slipped across Elias’ face like grease on pavement. “The man you’re willing to die for, Martin Blackwood, is as human as the woman you’d been calling Sasha for the past year.”

“So what?”

Elias’ grin faltered. “So what?” He repeated, mimicking Martin’s flippant tone.

“Yeah,” Martin clicked the lighter back on and held up another statement to burn. “So what? I don’t just love him for his humanity.”

He could feel Martin’s fear like a heatwave to bask in, but he could also feel the truth in his words. He wasn’t afraid of Jon’s monstrousness, not like he feared Elias.

It was foolish.

He didn’t understand it.

He’d lived for hundreds of years. Not once had he ever truly been seen the way Martin saw Jon. Seen and taken for the whole of who he was and loved not despite it, but for it. Loved for the whole of him and not just the best parts.

Just for a moment, fleeting enough that in the vast expanse of his lifetime it would be almost imperceptible, he longed for that devotion. To be loved, sharp edges and all.

_Touches from hands half dissolved in mist and fog, cold like the crisp ocean air. A warm cabin floating on still waves._

Even he’d asked Elias to be less.

“You’ll regret this,” Elias threatened through the closed door.

“No,” Martin replied from inside, calmly burning another statement. He looked across the room, away from the door, towards an old magazine hanging on the wall and met Elias’ eyes. “I don’t think I will.”

Elias slipped into Martin’s mind; a warm place laced with the bitter scent of black tea. He wound images and thoughts and hatred in the empty spaces, tugging on the memories of a lonely childhood. A parent who didn’t try hard enough.

The scent of tea followed Elias back to his office, where he found that someone had knocked over the cup, spilling tea across his desk. Even as Martin curled in on himself four flights below, tears staining his cheeks, mind filled with repressed trauma, Elias felt the love he had for Jon. Unbreakable, unflinching, unconditional.

Jonathan Sims could destroy the entire world and Martin Blackwood would remain loyal to him. It was a dangerous sort of power.

**Author's Note:**

> I have this like half planned out so I'm planning on updating as I write, wish me luck
> 
> Also comments feed my God so, you know..


End file.
